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ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



appeal of the Irish bishops, early in the year, the 

 English hierarchy added a petition to the Marquis 

 of Salisbury as head of the Government, praying 

 that the relief they demanded might be granted to 

 the Catholics of Ireland. 



The state of affairs from which relief was asked 

 was in 1898 as follows : Of the two universities in 

 Ireland, Trinity College was Protestant by history, 

 teaching, tradition, and association. The other, 

 the Royal University, was non-sectarian, but con- 

 sisted merely of an examining board authorized to 

 confer degrees. The three Queen's colleges, in Bel- 

 fast, Galway, and Cork, though non-sectarian in 

 foundation, had become sectarian by teaching and 

 tradition. They were supported by parliamentary 

 grants, so that non-Catholics might receive a free 

 collegiate education. What the Catholics demanded 

 was the establishment of a college, similar to one of 

 the three Queen's colleges ; so managed that Catho- 

 lics might conscientiously attend it, and so endowed 

 that pupiis of slender means might obtain at it the 

 same advantages as at either of the three Queen's 

 colleges. Agitation had so far progressed toward 

 the end of 1898 that in the opinion of Mr. Balfour, 

 Parliament, which had shown such consideration 

 for the religious feelings of the Soudanese in the es- 

 tablishment of the Gordon Memorial College, could 

 no longer consistently refuse to establish a college 

 for Catholics in Ireland. 



France. The ninth centenary of the institution 

 of All Souls' Day was celebrated at Cluny, Nov. 30 to 

 Dec. 10, in the presence of the cardinals of Lyons, of 

 Rheims, and of Autun, under special privileges from 

 the Holy See, which allowed the daily celebration 

 of solemn mass for the dead, notwithstanding the 

 occurrence of double feasts. The translation into 

 French by 1'Abbe Klein, of the Institute of Paris, 

 of Father Elliott's "Life of Father Hecker," the 

 founder of the Paulist Society, aroused considerable 

 discussion in ecclesiastical circles in France. The 

 doctrines of Father Hecker were attacked as he- 

 retical by 1'Abbe Maignen, in a book entitled "Is 

 Father Hecker a Saint f " Theological flaws were 

 said to exist in Father Hecker's published works, 

 and the whole matter was finally made the subject 

 of a special session of the Sacred Congregation of 

 Rites, called by the Pope to close the question. 

 The decision, which was reached late in the year, 

 was embodied in an encyclical letter, which up to 

 Dec. 31 had not been issued. 



The case of the canonization of Joan of Arc 

 came before the Sacred Congregation of Rites on 

 June 28, in the shape of an investigation of the 

 validity of the apostolic process in the Orleans 

 court regarding the virtue and miracles, in specie, 

 for her beatification. This was the second of the 

 three processes required for canonization. The 

 first, which results in the conferring of the title 

 " Venerable " was concluded in 1897. The second, 

 the beatification, requires two miracles for its estab- 

 lishment. The third, the canonization proper, re- 

 quires the proof of three miracles by her direct 

 intercession. It was expected that this process 

 would be reached in 1899. The progress of the 

 case was watched with great eagerness throughout 

 France. Special preparations were made for a cele- 

 bration in her honor at Orleans, in May, 1899. 



The Chamber of Deputies, in April, passed a law 

 imposing such taxes upon religious communities 

 that payment was impossible if the orders were 

 to continue in existence. Of 180,000 religious in 

 France, 120,000 refused to pay the tax. As a result 

 the premises of many of the oldest religious com- 

 munities in the world were sold at public auction. 

 Including the pupils of the colleges, convents, and 

 orphanages whom they taught, and the inmates of 

 the homes, asylums, and hospitals whom they 



tended, housed, and fed, 2,500,000 persons were 

 in 1898 the beneficiaries of the 180,000 religious 

 subject to the tax. 



By an apostolic brief, Leo XIII, in October, con- 

 firmed the right of the French to protect Christians 

 in the East. The brief was asked for by the Cardi- 

 nal Archbishop of Rheims, in connection with the 

 massacre of French and German priests in China. 



Mgr. Valleau, Bishop of Quimper, and Mgr. de la 

 Foata, Bishop of Ajaccio, died in the year. 



The third national congress of French Catholics 

 was held at Paris, Nov. 27 to Dec. 4. The best 

 Catholic orators of France spoke on various sub- 

 jects pertaining to religion and society. A pil- 

 grimage of " penitence and expiation" to Lourdes, 

 in April, 1899, was organized under the lay leader- 

 ship of the Comte de Man. 



Germany. The strained relations which had 

 existed between the German court and the Holy 

 See were somewhat ameliorated in 1898, by several 

 important concessions _ made to Catholics by the 

 Emperor. Among these was the reinstatement of 

 the Dominicans in the convent at Cologne from 

 which they had been excluded at the close of the 

 eighteenth century. The convent was one of the 

 most ancient and most celebrated houses of the 

 order, and was the home of Albert the Great, St. 

 Thomas of Aquinas, and Blessed Ambrose of Sienna. 

 The Emperor further conferred the order of the Red 

 Eagle of the first class upon Mgr. Piavi, Patriarch 

 of Jerusalem. Under the direction of the cardinal 

 archbishop the monument of St. Ursula, in tl.e 

 sanctuary of St. Ursula at Cologne, was opened in 

 October for the purpose of lowering it to the level 

 of the floor of the church. The monument dates 

 from the sixth century. Inside it was found a 

 Gothic sarcophagus, covered with a large slab of 

 slate, upon which a picture of St. Ursula wtis 

 painted. Inside the sarcophagus was a small 

 wooden box, filled with bones, presumably those 

 of St. Ursula and her companions, martyred" by the 

 Huns in the fifth century. 



Austria. An important decision of the Sacred 

 Congregation of Rites removed what had been for 

 years a cause of difference between the Vatican and 

 the Church in Austria, Roumania, Bulgaria, and 

 the other countries evangelized by St. Cyril. By 

 the decision the Slavic language was permitted to 

 be used in the liturgy where an established custom 

 of thirty years could be shown to have existed, and 

 where there was no danger of mutilating the sense 

 of the words by the mixture of different dialects. 

 The right of deciding claims to use this permission 

 was vested in the bishops. No other language could 

 be used in the liturgy of the churches obtaining this 

 privilege, and the liturgical books were to be printed 

 and edited under the supervision of the Apostolic 

 See. Another ground of dissension was removed in 

 the admonition to the bishops to have both Slavic 

 and Latin taught in their seminaries in order to 

 enable priests to administer to the Slavic churches 

 The concession was regarded as an important one, 

 inasmuch as the right to use the Slavic language 

 had been claimed for centuries by the Slavic Church, 

 which maintained that its use had been recognized 

 by early Popes, and had been established when tho 

 country was first converted to Christianity. 



The golden jubilee of the imperial and royal 

 house of Austria was celebrated on Dec. 2, by tin: 

 laying of the foundation of the cathedral in Philip- 

 popolis by Mgr. Menini, Archbishop of Sofia and 

 Philippopolis, and by services in the churches a; 

 Vienna, in the National Teutonic Church at Rome, 

 and in the Church of St. Mary in London, at which 

 latter the Queen and Prince of Wales were each 

 represented, as were all the foreign embassies by 

 their ambassadors and staffs. 



